Suggestions for v0.8

[Kull]

Jus a quesiton about Gaesatae. I was reading Polybius today, and in Book 2, Part 22, he mentions that they are hired and that the Gaesatae are essentially mercenaries, so I was wondering if there are any plans on making them Mercenaries? Also I was wondering why they are recruitable to the Aedui?

Thanks guys!

They should be in as mercenaries for v.80. The Aedui can recruit them because that's their native faction.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I was wondering, again, about something I noticed in EB. Whenever my thureophoroi or thorakitai are in melee and I order them to attack an other unit than they were attacking first, they start to 'throw' javelins instead. Now, whenever they do such a thing they get slaughtered in droves (a unit of peltastai once killed half my unit of thorakitai that way ). Could this be due to the 'missile' class of the infantry? Some way to fix it?

Also: aren't the current overhand style animations just missile animations? If so, you could try the overhand style formation in XGM (only if you get permission of course) instead.

[Darkarbiter]

0.8 works in the same way BI works. You'll notice, with BI installed, that there is a seperate folder for BI within the RTW folder, it is in essence a completey different set of files from vanilla. BI is accessed through a seperate .exe file, not the RomeTW.exe for normal RTW. Because they use different .exe files, they are essentially different games and thus have different version numbers. When BI is 1.6, RTW is 1.5. In just the same way that you can choose to play either RTW or BI from the same install, we have modded EB so that you can choose to play RTW and EB from the same install. We are able to do this because we can add a command line to the RomeTW.exe that tells the game to look in a seperate "EB" folder for the modified game files that we use.

This means that on the same install, ie in the same RTW directory, you can have vanilla RTW, BI, Alexander and EB all working seperately and correctly.

the data files for vanilla RTW are found here:
Rome - Total War/data

the BI data files are found here:
Rome - Total War/BI/data

The EB data files are found here:
Rome - Total War/EB/data

Because they are all in seperate data folders the files don't affect each other and thus the all the different games can be played without fear of messing the others up.

Foot

Ive been thinking.... doesnt that meen that having the BI folder is essentially the same as having -mod. Because i know that BI mods that alter vanilla files only can work with the BI directory deleted and since 1.5 is the same as 1.6 the only difference between 1.6 and 1.5 is the BI.exe otherwise BI may as well be a mod.

Im a little hazy about the only difference between 1.5 and 1.6 being the exe (and BI folder) though can anyone correct me/back me up? Obviously registry says its 1.6 too but thats not important.

I was wondering, again, about something I noticed in EB. Whenever my thureophoroi or thorakitai are in melee and I order them to attack an other unit than they were attacking first, they start to 'throw' javelins instead. Now, whenever they do such a thing they get slaughtered in droves (a unit of peltastai once killed half my unit of thorakitai that way ). Could this be due to the 'missile' class of the infantry? Some way to fix it?

Also: aren't the current overhand style animations just missile animations? If so, you could try the overhand style formation in XGM (only if you get permission of course) instead.

Use alt right click to use alternate weopen (missle is allways primary weopen). If you use alt right click they will allways go into melee.

[Corinthian Hoplite]

Are Auxilia units going to exist in 0.8? I think I missed them, are they historically incorrect? What about militia units to act as garrissons?

[Ludens]

Are Auxilia units going to exist in 0.8? I think I missed them, are they historically incorrect?

Have a look at the auxilla preview.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Use alt right click to use alternate weopen (missle is allways primary weopen). If you use alt right click they will allways go into melee.

Yes, but the point is, that both thorakitai and thurephoroi aren't supposed to pretend that they are some sort of skirmisher. They should be the same sort of unit as hastati in this way that while intended for melee only they have the means to soften the enemy up before closing in. However when they have closed in, they should stick to melee, and to melee only - just like Vanilla Hastati and Principes do.

Methought that this 'fault' could be due to the fact that they are rated as missile infantry, whereas Vanilla Hastati are not.

[Corinthian Hoplite]

I'm looking forward to see realistic unit armour/shield/skill values. Vanilla and most mod's stats were so stupid. Ex: a unit with a helmet and greaves having no armour or two units having the same armour value with completely diferent types of armour, skill values based on gameplay rather than reality, all cavalry having 4 shield defense (regardless of the actual shield size) and infantry shields restricted to 2 and 5, representing it's size in a very rough manner.

[Watchman]

Naw. Any and all troops with precursor missile weapons will do that, or at least when they finally get into their thick virtual skulls they're ordered to shoot (they can be a bit slow on the uptake). If you right-click the enemy and they still have ammo left - ie. the cursor changes into that javelin thingy - you're telling them to fire at the enemy period, and if the command gets through the "fog of war" they'll soon start reloading and toss their javelins or whatever at the foe.

This is actually quite useful at times. There's quite a lot of units that have a low armour rating but quite a high defense skill and are thus rather difficult to kill in melee, but them javelins only care about the armour value (and shield)... Judicious use of this technique makes urban assaults against the unarmoured but skilled and numerous African eleutheroi with Libyans rather quicker, for example. And conversely if your unit has AP missiles and non-AP melee weapons (Scutarii come to mind), tossing a volley tends to reduce the numbers of heavily armoured enemies fairly quickly. That all missiles in EB (well, except the javelins on one of those Central Asian light cav... bit of an oversight that one, methinks) have kill rate of round 1 and no melee weapon had above 0.5 doesn't particularly hurt either.

That the soldiers drop everything else and turn into a bit of sitting ducks for the loading and firing sequence is of course a bit troublesome, but may well be worth it given the number of enemies that may well drop in one go. Plus in my experience the throwers usually don't actually suffer too badly, but then again I use Medium battle difficulty...

Anyway, the unit type designation doesn't AFAIK have any game-mechanical effect. It's just there to tell the AI and the assorted formation files where the unit in question is supposed to go and what it's supposed to do; the Other/Missile/Light/Heavy distinction in weapon type AFAIK has no real significance beyond what weapon upgrades the unit gets - in EB nothing gives the upgrade to Missile or Other, but conversely many units have their missiles (typically higher-end infantry with precursors) tagged as for example Light ("simple" in the EDU) instead of Missile ("archery" in the EDU, IIRC) and thus get the bonus (which incidentally affects both the ranged and melee attack value). Thus for example Thureophoroi (whose javelins are rated "missile") never get the upgrade, but Gaesatae (whose javelins are tagged as "simple"/Light) do.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Well that explains then, thanks Watchman.

Still wondering though about the 'unit' and 'description' thingies I stated before...

[Sdragon]

Yes, but the point is, that both thorakitai and thurephoroi aren't supposed to pretend that they are some sort of skirmisher. They should be the same sort of unit as hastati in this way that while intended for melee only they have the means to soften the enemy up before closing in. However when they have closed in, they should stick to melee, and to melee only - just like Vanilla Hastati and Principes do.

Vanilla Hastati and Principes have the same javalin throwing problem. Used to drive me nuts. (Lost more than one unit of Hastati because of it before I learned Alt) Any unit that is melee but has a javalin WILL want to throw it if you order an attack, nomatter how retarted that doing so is. So it's vanilla thing and not just a thorakitai one. (Not of course if you hold Alt when ordering an attack)

[Watchman]

Still wondering though about the 'unit' and 'description' thingies I stated before...

Didn't I try to explain them in that last paragraph already ?
Okay, I'll try again. In the EDU Thureophoroi are given the unit type "spearmen" (or more specifically, "category - infantry" and "class - spearmen"). This tells the assorted formation text files and the AI what these units are used for and where they are put in the battle order, nothing more.

Now, the "tech type" of their primary weapon (the precursor javelin) is "archery". This is the one that appears as "Missile" in the unit info card - it's always the primary weapon whose type shows up there, period. The only effect this has is in the context of the weapon-upgrade blacksmithy building, which does boost Light and Heavy weapons (respectively the "tech types" "simple" and "blade" in the EDU) as well as armour, but not Missile weapons. Ergo, Thureophoroi never get the weapon upgrade as the engine only looks up the primary weapon's type in the context; that the spear the Thureos use for melee is typed "simple" doesn't interest it one bit. Ditto for quite a few other precursor-spearman units, such as Libyan Spearmen, Mala Gaeroas, Frameharjoz and so on. Dedicated skirmishers too.

Conversely Iberian Assault Infantry have their primary-weapon precursor javelins tagged as tech type "blade" (Heavy on the unit info card), and get the bonus point from blacksmiths. Ditto for most other swordsmen who have precursors - they're just about all designated as "simple" or "blade" and are thus upgrade-able.

To my knowledge this is the exact only effect that weapon attribute has.

[Darkarbiter]

You can change reload and fire times for units if you think they are taking too long to fire their missles.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Didn't I try to explain them in that last paragraph already ?

I was talking about a few previous posts of mine, on the previous page (page 30) of this thread. One about Iudaioi taxeis and Haravautish/Harauvatish, and another about 'ho basileus'/'ho basileos' and such in unit descriptions.

I apologize...

[Watchman]

I demand the twenty-something minutes of my life I spent typing that post back.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I suggest:
1) You contact Slartibardfast
2) You ask him for a bistromath powered spacecraft
3) You travel through time and space, wherever/whenever you like to go
4) Plus you do so at an amazing speed, only matched by the improbability powered spacecraft
5) And you don't need to muck about with improbability factors.

Now, that sounds great, eh?

[Corinthian Hoplite]

Loading times really need to be shortened, they're about twice longer than vanilla's!!

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Loading times really need to be shortened, they're about twice longer than vanilla's!!

Well, RTW's scripts are 512KB. Our scripts are 9MB! So, there is a reason for that.

[Corinthian Hoplite]

Could someone please answer post #907? Thanks ;)

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

I'm looking forward to see realistic unit armour/shield/skill values. Vanilla and most mod's stats were so stupid. Ex: a unit with a helmet and greaves having no armour or two units having the same armour value with completely diferent types of armour, skill values based on gameplay rather than reality, all cavalry having 4 shield defense (regardless of the actual shield size) and infantry shields restricted to 2 and 5, representing it's size in a very rough manner.

Well, I had already told you a bit about this. EB uses a specific incremental system where all armour pieces are accounted for in regard to placement, quality and material used in it. The same goes for weapons who have different speed, lethality, power and are accounted for in accord to their performance as well as ease of use. Also the types of soldier are divided in several classes that reflect their conditioning/training as well as thier status.

[Corinthian Hoplite]

Well, I had already told you a bit about this. EB uses a specific incremental system where all armour pieces are accounted for in regard to placement, quality and material used in it. The same goes for weapons who have different speed, lethality, power and are accounted for in accord to their performance as well as ease of use. Also the types of soldier are divided in several classes that reflect their conditioning/training as well as thier status.

Oh, right, I didn't understand well what you had said earlier
These are great news, I'm always attentive to bugs/gliches and so unit stat's are some of my main concerns. I even modded all vanilla units to make their stats realistic...

[Kull]

I'm looking forward to see realistic unit armour/shield/skill values. Vanilla and most mod's stats were so stupid. Ex: a unit with a helmet and greaves having no armour or two units having the same armour value with completely diferent types of armour, skill values based on gameplay rather than reality, all cavalry having 4 shield defense (regardless of the actual shield size) and infantry shields restricted to 2 and 5, representing it's size in a very rough manner.

As Aymar has indicated, EB uses a very sophisticated system to determine the effects of Armor, and everything else for that matter. Without giving away the full details, here's a look at the different types of just one kind of armor:

	Torso Armor
1	Skin
2	Shirt
3	Soft Leather Armor/Padded
4	Boiled Leather Armor/Linothorax 
5	Chain/Scale
6	Cuirass/Quality Chain

And of course there are similar groups for shields, helmets, and leg armor, not to mention "adder" categories which can improve say Torso and Head armor (Cheek Guards, Chest plates, etc.)

Everything item has a value associated with it, and all is further factored by ability to protect from 1 side, both sides, and/or rear.

So if "complex and realistic" was your hope, sleep easy.

[Corinthian Hoplite]

As Aymar has indicated, EB uses a very sophisticated system to determine the effects of Armor, and everything else for that matter. Without giving away the full details, here's a look at the different types of just one kind of armor:

	Torso Armor
1	Skin
2	Shirt
3	Soft Leather Armor/Padded
4	Boiled Leather Armor/Linothorax 
5	Chain/Scale
6	Cuirass/Quality Chain

And of course there are similar groups for shields, helmets, and leg armor, not to mention "adder" categories which can improve say Torso and Head armor (Cheek Guards, Chest plates, etc.)

Everything item has a value associated with it, and all is further factored by ability to protect from 1 side, both sides, and/or rear.

So if "complex and realistic" was your hope, sleep easy.

I created a system like that for vanilla some time ago, being (unnecessarily) more complex, perhaps too complex Had a hard time creating the system, for it all to be destroyed when I formatted my PC...

I'm glad to have the possibility of helping such a dedicated team.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Could someone please answer post #907? Thanks ;)

Maybe I've to try the same approach:

Could someone kind please answer posts 891 and 892 (page 30 of this thread)?

Many thanks in advance,

[Corinthian Hoplite]

I have yet another questions:

1. How will be classical hoplite animations? (if any) Are they like in other hellenic-period mods (good), or just a tweaked javelin animation (bad)?

2. Phalanxes, I don't play EB for quite some time, so forgive me if I'm being stupid: Do they still have officers? (very bad) How are they deployed, with or without gaps between them? (XGM) Without is obviously better...

EDIT: please don't forget about Tellos' post.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

While you may get answers, we are full on trying to get 0.8 out. If some suggestions are not commented upon from now till 0.8 is out, I hope you have a little bit of understanding about the context.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Of course, I do. I simply noticed that 'pointing' attention apparently pays off.

Anyway, do continue working on 0.8, the sooner it's out the better.

[Ludens]

2. Phalanxes, I don't play EB for quite some time, so forgive me if I'm being stupid: Do they still have officers? (very bad) How are they deployed, with or without gaps between them? (XGM) Without is obviously better...

Yes, there will be officers, as previewed in this thread. IIRC, there are no gaps between phalanxes in the current version of EB, so they probably won't be in 0.8 either.

I cannot answer your first question.

[Corinthian Hoplite]

Phalanxes with officers are a very bad idea, you can't form a solid line with them in the middle of your pikemen. I hope those officers are only for non phalanx infantry.

[Kralizec]

I'm not an EB member, but here goes...

I have yet another questions:

1. How will be classical hoplite animations? (if any) Are they like in other hellenic-period mods (good), or just a tweaked javelin animation (bad)?

Their animations haven't been previewed yet. Personally I didn't think the fs_javelin animation (that's what it was called, IIRC) were that bad.

2. Phalanxes, I don't play EB for quite some time, so forgive me if I'm being stupid: Do they still have officers? (very bad) How are they deployed, with or without gaps between them? (XGM) Without is obviously better...

In the current version of EB, none of the phalanx units have officers. I don't expect that the classical hoplites will get them either, but you'll have to wait till an EB member confirms that.
There's the new standard bearers (very sexy I might add), but I'm guessing that they're meant for hypapsistai, thureophoroi and similar units. I also vaguely recall something about a mounted standard bearer...

[Corinthian Hoplite]

Their animations haven't been previewed yet. Personally I didn't think the fs_javelin animation (that's what it was called, IIRC) were that bad.

I think it is bad, The problem with fs_javelis is they will either fight or walk with the wrong part of the spear, take your pick.
SigniferOne's animation pack has a good hoplite animation:

SigniferOne's Animations Pack, v0.8 Beta



Permissions:
This mod is available without restrictions for all personal use. Any other use, such as inclusion in other mods, requires explicit permission and is otherwise prohibited.



What's new:
- Complete conversion for fs_s1_gladius. All animations have been converted,
except walking/running anims, and of course turning during battle.
-- charge with gladius held level, not waving above the head
-- block high/block low, dodge high/dodge low much improved
-- matching "impact"/getting hit anims
-- appropriate attack during run
-- hold shield if knocked down
-- no taunting of enemy before battle
-- non-static "idle" animation, fully matching idle animations now
-- etc

- Complete conversionfor fs_s1_hoplite. All animations have been converted,
except turning during battle.
-- Fixed charge, does not skip any longer
-- Minimized skipping during attacks
-- block high/block low, dodge high/dodge low much improved
-- matching "impact"/getting hit anims
-- appropriate attack during run
-- no taunting of the enemy before battle
-- non-static "idle" animation
-- etc

- New faster and smoother javelinman animations, 
-- improved efficiency of Romans and of skirmishers
-- animation is smoother and quicker to respond

- Relaxed swordsman stance available for all swordsmen, not just fs_s1_gladius
-- completely fixed (non jerky) and very smooth idle animations
-- non static, slightly moving "stand" animation

- a total of over 300 animations added to the game
-- All animation skeletons upgraded to be compatible with RTW 1.5/1.6
-- Speed variants for all infantry skeletons



Description:
The following animation skeletons are now available to be used:

FS_S1_HOPLITE (variants: fs_s1_slow_hoplite)
- no wild taunting
- classic hoplite stand position
- fully compatible charge

FS_S1_GLADIUS (variants: fs_s1_slow_gladius)
- no wild taunting for Romans during startup
- during a fight, holding the shield close and the gladius ready next to it
- stabbing fighting style with the gladius, no slashing

FS_S1_SWORDSMAN (variants: fs_s1_fast_swordsman, fs_s1_semi_fast_swordsman, fs_s1_slow_swordsman)
- holding the sword relaxed
- smooth idle animations
- non-static "stand" animation
- no "feint" animation to make fighting less jerky and more smooth

fs_S1_BARBSWORDSMAN (variants: fs_s1_fast_barbswordsman, fs_s1_semi_fast_barbswordsman, fs_s1_slow_barbswordsman)
- everything included in fs_s1_swordsman
- no thrust for barbarians, only big slashes, as their swords were not designed
for thrusts and even had blunt points

FS_S1_ARCHER (variants: fs_s1_fast_archer, fs_s1_semi_fast_archer)
- aiming vertically to the sky, rather than horizontally, and fully drawing the bow

FS_S1_HC_ARCHER
- when aiming, holding the bow vertically rather than horizontally, and drawing
the bow with full power

FS_S1_FOREST_ELEPHANT_JAVELINRIDER
- javelinmen can stand on elephants and shoot javelins
- good complement to charion javelinman skeleton in 1.5/1.6





Where to download:
http://www.twcenter.net/downloads/db/index.php?mod=464



How to install:
Unzip the four files into Data/animations folder, overwriting the existing four files 
there (always remember to back everything up!).



How to use:
Go into descr_model_battle.txt and change which units use which skeletons (i.e. give fs_s1_hc_archer to Parthian horse archers, change Roman infantry from fs_javelinman, fs_swordsman to fs_javelinman, fs_s1_gladius, etc).

Supplementary note: I strongly recommend that for using fs_s1_hoplite, you remove the soldier's secondary weapon (sword), and also remove the "phalanx" ability; however giving them "shield wall" works great. This is for best results. To do all this, open export_descr_unit.txt, search for your hoplite unit, change his secondary weapon stats to 0, 0 (the rest doesn't matter), delete the word "phalanx" from his abilities (and give "shield wall"). fs_s1_hoplite works really well with this combination.

This version of the mod is released to be 100% stable, and is not expected to interfere
with any other part of the game. So, as always, remember to describe what goes wrong, 
if it does (even if I don't expect anything to).

Enjoy, and have fun!



Revision history:

0.8  Current version, conversion to 1.5/1.6, new skeletons
0.7  Updates to some skeletons
0.65 Resolved bugs with the Campaign map animations 
0.6  Updated to work with Vercingetorix' XIDX
0.5  Original release


Credits:
The primary credit and thanks for my release go to CA, both because of the great game 
they have created, and the wonderful base animations which formed an invaluable 
foundation for this project. Literally, they did 90% here (and I did a LOT myself, so 
that says how big their contribution was).

The second credit and thanks go to Vercingetorix, without whose wonderful programs 
none of this would be possible. He literally made it possible, so treat him nicely 
and send him cookies whenever you can.

The link: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=27015